Marriage, love, hopes and bubble bursters

Earlier this week, I was sitting in my son's violin recital looking around the room at all the other parents.  Well not really all the other parents.....I was mainly looking at the couples.  What are their lives like?  When they were getting ready for the concert, did they smile and laugh with an easy going affection that naturally made them a team?  Did they argue with each other over whether they were late, where they were going to sit, and what their child was wearing?  Were they really here together.....in love.....in "like" even....with each other?  Or were they putting on a show of togetherness now that they were in public, after tension, dissent, and bickering in private?

Of course, I will never know.  None of us really ever know what goes on between two people unless their distrust, criticism, and antagonism spills over....over the boundaries of private life, out to the public world.  When I see that happen, it brings sadness to my heart, even if they are strangers.

I find myself longing to reach out and interfere.....to remind them both that what they are arguing about is amazingly important to both of them in different ways at the moment, however in the grand scheme of life - it is meaningless.  That they should stop, take a step back, and allow themselves to come back together naturally rather than forcing a false perception of togetherness, of partnership that is belied with distrust and anxiety.

I am especially baffled by arguments about something that "almost" happened.  As in we were almost late.  Really?  Unless the sentence goes something like "and then she almost had sex with the naked man in her bed" this should be a moment of joyous celebration, a mini-victory in the race against time by you and your team family.  High fives all around!

I found myself trying to look into their eyes.  For some reason I feel like I could tell if I could see in there eyes.  Is there the relaxed look of someone who knows they are loved, that knows they are safe, that knows that all they would have to do is give a quick glance or a half smile and their partner would instantly smile back with a knowing look.  The secret, unspoken language of two people bound to each other through their love and acceptance of each other.

How often do lovers burst the bubbles of their partner with sharp words, cutting looks, a sarcastic tone?  How often is the focus on what went wrong rather than what went right?  How often do we let happiness slip through our fingers like sand?  It seems like love is a solid, tangible entity at the beginning of a relationship.  We can hold it in our hands, press it to our chest, say to everyone "Look at this!  Look at what I have found!  Look what I am creating!!"  The it seems to get softer, more distorted.  Without the proper care and attention, it seems that it can become a globulous thing, a slippery tube of goo that you can purchase at a souvenir shop for your kids to entertain them for hours.....trying to hold on to something that is slipping away.  Not so entertaining when we are grown up.

I realized that I was not even really hearing the music as I had become lost in thought and observations of the body language of all the couples around me....and I had to call myself back to the moment, much like a mother calls out the backdoor for the kids to come home and have dinner.  I had to tell myself to be in my own moment, to listen to the slightly too slow rendition of "William Tell" that the children had practiced for months.  To look at the nervous head of my own child, my beautiful son, who was lost in his own moment at the time.

He has nice bowing....